Generally, gaze tracking technology can be used to understand the position at which a user gazes and has been widely used for marketing, medical service, driving, menu control, and the like. Gaze tracking schemes using gaze tracking technology may be largely classified into two schemes: a remoted scheme and a head mounted scheme.
The remoted scheme involves searching for a user's gazing point within any defined monitor or screen. The remoted scheme does not inconvenience a user to carry the equipment, but has a limited use space, and therefore, may not be used in real environment. Further, there is a need to correct the gazing point depending on a user's motion.
The head mounted scheme tracks the user's gaze to search for the gazing point by using equipment on a user's head and mapping the searched gazing point to a front image. The head mounted scheme may be used in a three-dimensional space under real environment.
When the user's gaze stays at a specific point for a predetermined time or more, the existing menu selection method using gaze tracking recognizes the user's gaze staying at a specific point as an instruction of the user to select a menu at which the user's gaze stays. The existing menu selection method using gaze tracking may not be applied under the situation that the user does not gaze at the menu for a predetermined time or more because the driver's gaze needs to stay at the specific menu for a predetermined time or more (for example, 2 seconds or more) to select a menu item. In particular, when the existing menu selection method using gaze tracking is applied to a driving vehicle, a driver gazes forward but gazes at the specific menu on a display for a predetermined time or more to select a menu item. Therefore, safe driving may be hindered due to the driver's gaze being fixated on the menu while driving.